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Leadership Team

W. Richards (Rick) Adrion, Principal Investigator,

is Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also directs the ECEP partner, the Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education (CAITE), and the Research in Presentation Production for Learning Electronically (RIPPLES) research group. Rick has been developing multimedia systems for teaching and learning since 1995 and has been involved in software engineering research and teaching since 1975. He is a fellow of the ACM and of the AAAS and received distinguished service awards from the University, ACM-SIGSOFT and the Computing Research Association.

Sarah Dunton, ECEP Alliance Manager,

has extensive experience building collaborations between higher education, K-12, community-based organizations and industry. She has worked in the field of informal education for more than 15 years, focusing her work on engaging underrepresented populations, specifically girls and women in STEM. She has a master's degree in teacher & curriculum studies with a concentration in learning, media & technology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a bachelor's degree in women's studies also from the University of Massachusetts. In her current role, Sarah works with leaders in 17 states, including the territory of Puerto Rico, to broaden participation in K-16 computer science education. Sarah believes building strong networks and developing authentic collaborations are the key to sustainable social change.

Barbara Ericson, Co-Principal Investigator,

is the Director of Computing Outreach and a Senior Research Scientist for the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. She has worked at Georgia Tech to increase the quantity and quality of secondary computing teachers and the quantity and diversity of computing students since 2004. She has a master's degree in computer science from the University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree in computer science from Wayne State University. She is currently pursuing a Human-Centered Computing Ph.D. at Georgia Tech. She has co-authored four books on Media Computation. She and her husband, Mark Guzdial, were the winners of the 2010 Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Computing Educator Award. She was also the winner of the 2012 A. Richard Newton Educator Award. Barbara has served on the CSTA's Board of Directors, the Advanced Placement Computer Science Development Committee, and the NCWIT executive committee for the K-12 Alliance.

Renee Fall, Co-Principal Investigator,

is alsoproject manager for the Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education (CAITE) and for its predecessor, the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI). Two efforts to increase diversity in computing in Massachusetts, she brings more than 20 years of experience in higher education administration, specializing in inter-institutional cooperation, academic program management and development, fundraising, and communications. Her humanities background and master's degree from Harvard Divinity School provide grounding in social justice and gender studies. Renee is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education research, policy, and leadership at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Mark Guzdial, Principal Investigator,

is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on learning sciences and technology, specifically, computing education research. He has published several books on the use of media as a context for learning computing. He received a Ph.D. degree in Education and Computer Science (joint) from the University of Michigan in 1993. With Sally Fincher and Richard Anderson, he founded the ACM SIGCSE International Computing Education Research workshop series. He serves on both ACM's Education Board and the Special Interest Group in CS Education (SIGCSE) Board, and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Learning Sciences, ACM Transactions on Computing Education, and Communications of the ACM. He was co-recipient (with his wife and colleague, Barbara Ericson) of the 2010 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Award for Contributions to Education, and recipient of the 2012 IEEE Computer Society Undergraduate Teaching award.